


The Important Questions

by clarewithnoi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, Cute, Discourse, Established Relationship, F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Humor, Idiots in Love, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Slice of Life, average everyday occurrences, cute couple being cute, discussion of marriage, jily, just a casual conversation about marriage, your honor they are so in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 21:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarewithnoi/pseuds/clarewithnoi
Summary: The first time they talk about marriage, they’re sitting by the lake eating apples, and it’s James who brings it up.Jily fluff.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 41
Kudos: 125





	The Important Questions

**Author's Note:**

> hi I just love them
> 
> NAR chapter coming soon!!!! I SWEAR this to you!
> 
> anyway, here you go! there's an Easter egg for my "In The Eye of the Storm" readers, if you'll catch it... ;)

The first time they talk about marriage, they’re sitting by the lake eating apples, and it’s James who brings it up.

The fact of it being James who brings it up is not at all surprising. James is simply _like that_. He dives headlong into big conversations as if there is no topic too strange or intimate, as though the concept of marriage were on par with that of grocery shopping or schoolwork.

“Would you marry me?” He asks post-grotesquely large bite of his apple. He hasn’t even swallowed fully when he begins, so the _would_ is more like _w—ou—ld._

“What?” Lily halts her own apple-eating and turns toward him. “Are you...was that a _proposal?”_

He takes another, smaller bite. He is apparently unperturbed by her surprise.

“Gods, no,” he says, “Evans, trust me on this: when I propose to you, you won’t have to question whether it’s happened or not.”

 _When,_ he said. _When I propose._

In order for her to conjure an effective response, she has to tuck that entire sentence away in her mind for further reflection at a later date. It’ll do her no good right now to let it bounce about in her head.

But he said _when. When I propose to you._

_When._

She shakes herself, blinks back into the present. The sun feels heavy on her bare shoulders. They’ve been out for a few hours, now, so her skin has a slight blush to it, every inch not covered by her breezy Spring clothes. Red-haired people are always cautious of this phenomenon.

“So, what—is this some sort of theoretical?”

“Sort of,” he admits, “I was just thinking about it. I know _I_ would marry _you—_ no questions there—but I’ve never actually asked you for your thoughts on the matter. So, here’s me asking, I suppose.”

Lily watches the way his jaw moves as he speaks. The side of his face is slightly concave, like he’s chewing on his cheek. It’s a new manifestation of nerves, one he may have been forced to invent for such topics as _would you marry me,_ which—even for such a guileless chap as he—are waters yet uncharted.

“You know you’d marry me, do you?”

“I do,” he replies immediately. He pauses, and it lingers between them. He’s waiting for her. “So...”

For a brief moment, she’s very tempted to laugh. Not at him or at the question or even his shoddy explanation of said question, but rather at the fact that, at one point, she’d thought him to be so arrogant that the idea of seeing him insecure felt like a flight of fantasy. But here he is, very real, in front of her, legs crossed on grass and fingers toying with the stem of a half-eaten apple.

“Bit of a big question, there,” she says wryly, “interesting choice to spring it on a girl whilst she’s relaxing at the lake.”

“I’d classify it as better than springing it at the Three Broomsticks, but probably worse than springing it in the library.”

“Why the library?”

“Libraries are very serious places, Evans. All manner of discussions happen in there.”

Lily is aware that girlfriends are supposed to dislike if their boyfriends bring up marriage out of the blue. She’s quite sure of this, in fact. Girlfriends are supposed to be cross if their boyfriends make big statements like _when I propose to you_ or _I know I would marry you_ out of nowhere. These things are written somewhere in the girlfriend handbook, she imagines, in glaring red letters. Right next to _have him carry your books_ and _don’t talk about your exes._

But she doesn’t dislike it, and she isn’t cross. She isn’t cross at all. In fact, this impromptu examination of their future feels completely natural to her, like it rode in on the very breeze that dances between them now, lightly caressing the mess of James’s hair and soothing the red sting of her skin.

She supposes, after a moment, that not all girlfriends are Lily Evans and not all boyfriends James Potter.

(It’s more than a little self-importing, but she can’t help it; something about him just _glows—_ so she must glow then, too, if not just by association. It’s a nice thought to have.)

James clears his throat. It occurs that he’s still awaiting a response.

Lily hums and takes a small bite of her apple. He’s beginning to really look nervous, now, which is utterly nonsensical to her. They’ve been dating for a little over six months, and if there was life before him, she doesn’t care to remember it.

But he is James Potter, and she is Lily Evans, and marriage means something different to a wealthy pureblood than it does to her, so she replies: “I don’t know. Care to make your case?”

James’s eyes light up. Expounding upon the merits of being her boyfriend—along with his incalculable successes within this position—is a favorite pastime of his. He puts his apple down on the red tartan blanket and takes a deep breath of fresh air. His chest inflates, and it momentarily baffles her to know that breath is the basis of life, a universal experience across all living beings, yet somehow the process seems better suited to him than anyone else she’s seen do it before.

James lies back in preparation for his monologue. His legs stretch out long beyond the confines of their picnic blanket.

“Gods, where do I even begin?” He ponders, and it makes her laugh loudly, the kind of laugh that changes her whole posture. The force of it pushes her back onto her elbows.

“Anywhere you like, darling. I’m intrigued.”

Lily knows—before the conversation has even veered in this direction—that James views marriage not through the lens of practicum and feasibility, but rather as the final sprint in a race he wants desperately to win. Being married and having children is something he longs for very badly, she understands, because he wants so intensely to emulate his own father; to be the steady support system to a loving wife, to teach a child the ways of the world. To have people that are _his_ , as he is _theirs_.

This knowledge about him runs very deep in her, like it’s been pulled straight from the _James Potter_ file she has unknowingly tucked away in her brain. She knows this like it’s been the subject of an earlier conversation between the two of them, when in fact, they’ve never spoken of it before at all.

It is this same knowledge that assures her that she could say such a thing as _I don’t know_ without fear of reprisal, of disappointment, of fear. Whatever her answer was, it would have been the right one, simply because it came from her.

“First of all,” he begins, “we’re very much in love—”

“Are we? How interesting. That’s wonderful news.”

“Ha-ha, Evans, very funny. Now pipe down; I’m trying to plead a case here.”

“Terribly sorry. By all means, do carry on.”

“ _Thank_ you. As I was saying, we’re in love—”

“ _Very much_ in love, actually, if you’re getting specific about it.”

“—we’re _very much in love_ , which is grand, because I’d only been waiting for about four years—”

“Ah, yes, this long-mythologized _waiting_ period.” Lily rolls her eyes. “Now, remind me: were you just sitting idly, twiddling your thumbs and sending me longing looks? Or were you—perchance—hexing everyone in the immediate vicinity and generally comporting yourself like a self-righteous prat?”

A brief pause. An amending, if you will, or a great thinking-through.

“…As I was saying, we’re very much in love, and barring all behavior previous, I’m actually quite an alright bloke who will always encourage you, support you, and generally do things that are extremely and intentionally non-prat-like.”

Apparently satisfied with this argument, James exhales a long, contented breath, and he looks at her with an unveiled smugness that says, _don’t even bother trying to refute that._

Lily must admit—it was compelling. She mulls it over.

 _Quite an alright bloke_ is to James Potter what _small pond_ is to the Atlantic Ocean. He is the best of the Wizarding World for so many reasons. But this war doesn’t care how good you are, or how kind, just who your parents are and who you marry.

 _Like me,_ she thinks, _they care if he marries me._

Lily nearly lets loose the noise of annoyance that sticks uncomfortably in her throat at this thought. The war has taken so much from her. She won’t let it take this moment as well.

She sits back up and runs a hand through James’s hair, smiling at the hum that breaks through his lips, glad to be able to touch him, to give herself a physical anchor to him in the wake of his soul-bearing. He reaches an arm out and traces traces circles on her ankle with his thumb. He might be doing the same thing. His hand is cool on her skin.

“Blimey, Evans,” he murmurs, “you’re well sunburnt.” He closes his eyes and shifts a little closer to her with a sigh, one arm tucked under his head. “Don’t worry, though—I’ve got that muggle stuff you like in my trunk. _Algo? Aloo?_ Whatever it is.”

He means aloe. He has aloe vera in his trunk. This piece of information—of all things—catches her breath as it leaves her chest, and she shifts her gaze to where his hand rests on her ankle, golden and bronzed atop an angry pink. He has aloe vera in his trunk.

“James…” she whispers, and he murmurs indistinctly in response, eyes still closed and unaware of the stilling in her body. His chest inflates and deflates once more, and the cotton of his tee shirt stretches taut with the motion.

The force of this moment washes over her like the warm blanket of the afternoon sun. She knows she loves him, of course, _has_ loved him for a while now, in the breathless, heady way of her first real love. Everything with him is new and exciting, and every experience they share feels saturated with staggering, dazzling colors.

But if that love is fire, then this feeling in her chest is the first glimmer of dawn. She can feel inside of her the shift, the actualizing of a truth that she’s probably known at some level for some time now.

He has aloe vera in his trunk.

“James,” she repeats, “I asked you a question a few minutes ago.”

“I remember.”

“I want you to ask me that question, the exact same way I said it. The same question.”

Possibly just hearing the change in her tone, James opens his eyes and shifts up onto his elbows, abandoning the hand-on-ankle in favor of unadulterated eye contact. His eyes squint a bit in his glasses. She tried to keep her voice steady, unwavering. Maybe he knows her well enough to see through it—maybe he has his own _Lily Evans_ file tucked away.

She only has to wait a few seconds before she sees the words take shape in his mouth. They come out slower than they had when she said them, swaddled in a tenderness and care that makes her head foggy. His eyes never leave her face.

“You know you’d marry me,” he says, “do you?”

There are moments that feel so intense, so tectonic, that Lily knows the memory of them will appear clear and crystallized in her brain no matter at what age she tries to conjure them. It could be in ten years, maybe twenty. It could be on her death bed. She takes in each line and shadow on his face, each glimmer of green or yellow in the hazel constellations of his eyes. It feels like she’s preparing a message to her future self: _remember him like this._ _This is who he is._

“I do,” she says.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! :) leave a comment if you're so inclined, I'd love to know what you think!
> 
> as always, feel free to come drop me an ask or say hi on Tumblr! @clare-with-no-i :)


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